I worked a ton on it this weekend. Finished mounting the front coils and retainers, new shocks and made some bump stops for the front. I pulled the t-case to get the broken speed sensor out which requires pulling the interior for access to the top bolts. While I had the interior pulled apart I ran my battery cable through. I wasn't thrilled about the idea of running the cable along the frame so this gave me a good opportunity to run it inside.

And the good news is it actually started! You never know for sure if the harness is right until you try it and I guess I nailed it. Fired right up and runs good. Hopefully get everything finished up and get it out for a test drive this week.

Still on the short list:
Front sway bar
Rear wheelwells
Rear bump stops

Drew,
Just run what you have and see what happens, you may not run out of shafts. You may be surprised how well it holds up. The Internet is a scary place and the Jeep boards will have you believe that D44 is going to blow up on the way to the grocery store. You're welcome for the parts, glad they are going to good use.

On my thread you told me that my d44 will only be good for going to get ice cream in my I6 Xj yet you have a v8xj with d44 in it and tell other people that it's a lot better than people on the interweb claim..
So than what is it?

BTW that cage belongs at sema. I'd be afraid to scratch that thing.
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On my thread you told me that my d44 will only be good for going to get ice cream in my I6 Xj yet you have a v8xj with d44 in it and tell other people that it's a lot better than people on the interweb claim..
So than what is it?

BTW that cage belongs at sema. I'd be afraid to scratch that thing.
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You need to re-read my friend, I'll save you a trip back...

Quote:

Originally Posted by John D

You are going to run 39" tires on a D44. Unless you plan to only take it for ice cream runs, you will likely run into problems.

Weakness of a D44 (especially when you go 38" or bigger):
U-joint strength - you are taking care of this with the RCVs.
Ring gear deflection - you are taking care of this with the ARB (or other full case locker).
Ball joints - this is best taken care of with the Synergy BJs.

Even with all that you still can't drive like a jackass or life for the 44 will be short. I'm not bagging on your build, just making a suggestion

It was in reference to your choice of ball joints we were talking about a few posts before. I pointed out that you have taking care of all of the inherent weak links EXCEPT the ball joints and I was suggesting that this could be a problem with that size of tires you have.

I am a proponent of the D44, mine works well for me and I plan to keep it. I know it's not for everyone, there are people that will break axles no matter how big it is. I drove a D30 on stock shafts and 10 year old $15 Advance u-joints and a V8 and 35" tires without breaking. For me it seems a D60 is unessecary, however 39" tires and regular ball joints seem like an issue waiting to happen unless you only plan to take it for ice cream. The point I was making was that when/if the ball joint goes it will most likely destroy the RCV joint and they ain't going to warranty that. Hope that clears it up.

BTW that cage belongs at sema. I'd be afraid to scratch that thing.
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Ya, me thinking/planning (and saving) for two years and JCR using their skills for a full week and it turned out really nice. It actually needs to be painted again, the sides get used quite frequently.

I need some opinions on my swaybar. Because I moved the axle forward two inches the spring hits the back of the swaybar. I can push the swaybar up and make mounts for it in this postion, but I don't know if the swaybar will work effectively. Thoughts?

I made a shake-down run at the dunes last weekend, so before we went I stretched it out the best I could. The front bumps were fine and I threw some ¼” plate on top of the u-bolt plates in the rear. This was as far as I dared to go on the rear. I can’t wait to open these wheelwells up more.

I only had my kids and I wasn’t carrying my spare so I figured it would be okay. I was mostly right, I only hit a few times and the damage was minimal.

The biggest reason was the crappy bump stops bent on the harder impacts.

I had more time to improve bump stop Version 2.0, these should hold up a little better.

We did get to see the aftermath of an F250 and 6’ of air… ya, that’s the axle out there in front of the bumper.

I made a shake-down run at the dunes last weekend, so before we went I stretched it out the best I could. The front bumps were fine and I threw some ¼” plate on top of the u-bolt plates in the rear. This was as far as I dared to go on the rear. I can’t wait to open these wheelwells up more.

I had more time to improve bump stop Version 2.0, these should hold up a little better.

Might I recommend going straight up from the axletube with a piece of square tubing with a cap on the end? Would look a lot cleaner, and wouldn't be introducing strange side stresses into your ubolts/leafsprings.

Like everyone else has said, love the cage. I'm surprised you went that long without seriously trimming fenders. Planning on doing some trimming on the gf's xj when her stock tires wear out...

Might I recommend going straight up from the axletube with a piece of square tubing with a cap on the end? Would look a lot cleaner, and wouldn't be introducing strange side stresses into your ubolts/leafsprings.
Jake

That was my original idea, but I didn't have any material laying around to use and I ran out of time. I will try these at R&V later this month and then probably change to a piece of tube down to the axle. Version 2.1...

One of my original goals with my LS swap was to maintain the OEM Jeep instrument cluster to save the appearance of a stock Jeep.

To do this I ran the Jeep PCM in tandem with the Chevy PCM. I spent some money and time plumbing the 5.3L with Jeep sensors and everything should have work, but it didn't. You see, the gauges are fed (I think it starts in '97) by the signals being multiplexed through a buss going from the PCM to the instrument cluster. Even so, my theory was that the proper sensor would feed the Jeep PCM and send the signal to the dash. This wasn't the case. It appeared that the Jeep PCM was going into a sort of auto-shutdown. Countless hours of research (wire diagrams, web searching, interviews with Mopar techs, and seat of the pants troubleshooting) proved that it is not an auto-shutdown. What happened in my case was, when I would go ‘key-run’ all of the Jeep gauges would light up and read accurately. When I would go ‘key-run/start/run’ the gauges would "freeze" wherever they were and would not move up or down until I went ‘key-off/run’ again. The computer dropped communication with the instrument cluster through the start-run cycle. I had spent countless hours over about six months trying to make this work and I couldn’t. At the time I was pretty bummed, because I tried hard and wanted my dash to look factory.

I decided it was time to give up and go another route. I bought a set of AutoMeter Phantom gauges, and a blue, amber, red and two green led lights from Summit and got started.

The Jeep fuel sender measures 270 ohms down and 20 ohms up. The Autometer gauge is 240/33, so it wouldn’t read accurately. I was able to bend the float arm to the correct position to read 240 at empty. It still reads high on the full side, but I know when it's full